big pig photos

Ok, so as promised here are a few recent images, showing just how big the boys have got!

and here's one with Sam in his attractive pig-farmer overalls, just to give a bit of scale...

and this one is very overdue - this is our newest arrival, Ivy, who hatched on Christmas day - ahhh.


I did a bit of pig care this morning, which is normally sam's job during the week as I have to head off to the office. It was all going ok (depsite nearly get stuck in the mud and loosing a welly at one point), and I was doing a pretty good job of redoing the bedding. Then it started to rain. The boys don't like rain. They like to go to bed when it rains. I was trying to make thier bed ... with them in it.

They are so big now that with two of them in there, there's not a lot of room left, so I'm trying to stuff the fresh new straw past two big, curious, playful pigs, without getting too deep into the bed myself as they think that's really fun and a good excuse to scratch against my wellies and nibble my jumper which makes me nearly fall over into the straw with them!

We got there in the end, and as I left with the empty wheelbarrow to go back to the house to dry off, Minty was already lying snuggled in the straw, and Gary was snuffling and moving the last bit of straw just to his liking. They did look cute.

long time, big pigs, hard work!

I know, i know, its been ages since I last posted! (i've given up trying to get Sam or Val to do any posts!). The pigs had a great xmas, and really got into the swing of the season....



They have been on a healthy new year diet of as much extra raw veg peelings and scraps as they can eat. Now they are bigger they seem to be less fussy, and happily munch down leek leaves, potato peelings, carrot peelings and our neighbours over-sporouted cabbages which were generously donated to the bacon cause!

We didn't get any snow up here when the rest of the country was happily having snowball fights and sledging on tea trays, it did get very frosty though which was good as all the mud froze and went hard which made it easier to walk in the pig area. Unfortunatly the hose-pipe also froze, so we had to carry buckets of water down by hand.

They are getting incredibly big boys now - I'll post up some recent photos movies this weekend. Looking at Minty's back leg, its exactly the same shape and size as a whole parma ham (which is what one of them will become!). We have to keep thinking of them like this - as joints of pork, sausages, bacon etc, so that we are prepared for the next phase. We are getting a bit concerned over the exact timing of P-day, so we're posting on some of our favourite forums for advice - too big and their hormones might taint the meat, too small and we're doing ourselves out of an extra sausage or two...

More soon!